


There's a Land That I Heard Of

by TheOtherOdinson



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Canonical Character Death, Gen, Loki Has Issues, Unreliable Narrator, some horror, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-14 21:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21022211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOtherOdinson/pseuds/TheOtherOdinson
Summary: Loki jerked awake on a choked off scream.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Bit of a weird one for me and thus I've never been more unsure of my tagging. There are characters other than Loki in this fic, but I won't list them as I feel it would be giving away too much. Same with the tags. This is meant to be a kind of fix-it, but be warned the events of Infinity War still took place.

_You will never be a god._

Loki jerked awake on a choked off scream.

He threw himself to the side to escape the phantom grip on his neck, the smug triumphant eyes watching him. Killing him. Thrashing to escape confinement - and he fell to the ground with a crash, legs trapped, flailing arm bringing down a rain of debris on his head.

No, not debris. Trinkets.

Loki's vision swam blue. He blinked hard to clear it away. And stared.

He was sitting on hard ground. No, a floor. Marble. Dark with gold-veining and highly polished with an intricately woven rug made up of greens and gold partially pushed aside from where he'd fallen. The contents of a bedside table in a clutter nearby. A tangle of bed clothes hung precariously over the edge of a bed. His bed. His floor. His rug. The clutter - his things. This was his own bed chamber in the palace. In Asgard.

But it couldn't be.

Loki kicked himself loose of the clinging blankets and climbed to his feet. Slowly turning to take in his surroundings. Everything looked as he remembered it from the last time he was within. Years ago.

Before his fall. Before Tha - before.

Moving with stealthy ease born of familiarity, Loki crept across the room to peer out into the room beyond. He allowed the sense of comfort/home/safe wash over him.

No. Not safe. Not now.

_No realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you._

His sitting room was empty. No fires burned in the hearths. For a moment Loki saw a dancing shadow of purple play across the cold stones. An echo of memory shivered through him before a cold blast of air blew through the windows and stung at his eyes. He pressed his eyes shut and when he opened them again, the phantom haze was gone leaving behind only blackened stones.

There were books he remembered reading a lifetime ago stacked on the edge of the table next to his favourite chair. Everything couched in still silence. Frozen in time.

Loki hadn't stepped foot in these dead prince's quarters in years. Not when he returned to Asgard an outcast and a prisoner. Not even as Odin. He'd tried. Walked the familiar route to these doors a thousand times. Placed a hand on the wood, readying himself to enter. And walked away. Always he walked away.

Everything was the same. But it was wrong. This was wrong. It shouldn't be here. None of it. He shouldn't be here.

Asgard was dead. Wasn't it?

Loki was dead.

Wasn't he?

Unease prickled along his skin. He was forgetting something. Something teased at the corners of his mind, calling out to him. He reached out and found...

The teasing faded away. Sliding through his fingers like fog. He was left with nothing.

But there was something. Something.

Loki stole across the floor as if it might fall away beneath him - _burn away to ashes_ \- and out onto the balcony.

Asgard.

It was there. In all its bright, glistening beauty. Stretched out before him. The realm laid out at his feet as it always was. As it should have always been. Eternal.

His eyes stung again and Loki blinked away the gathering tears. It was the wind. Biting and cold. He sniffled. Yes, the wind.

Loki leaned far out over the balcony to see the city below, picking out the sights that always drew his eye. His favourite market. The Hall of Learning. The gardens where he learned to climb trees as a child with...

Thor.

Loki jerked away from the railing. The worrying at the back of his mind rushed back. Something about what he saw below - d_idn't see_ \- but Loki's thoughts leaped unbidden to Thor.

_The sun will shine on us again. _

Loki and Thor's quarters were next door to each other, as they had been since they were old enough to have rooms of their own. Loki's sitting room connected to Thor's via a short corridor. The doorway leading to it only a few feet behind him. Loki spurned it in favour of leaping over the short dividing wall separating their balconies and all but throwing himself into Thor's room.

"Thor!"

Thor's sitting room sat cold and empty, much as Loki's did. Undeterred, Loki searched through Thor's rooms, calling for him.

"Thor! Thor, do you hear me?" Loki slammed into one room after another. The same comforting familiarity warming - _chilling_ \- his veins with each room. Here, too, everything was as he remembered.

But there was no Thor.

Loki slipped through the rooms again like a shadow. Silent and dark. A shiver of unease crept up his spine to jab sharply along the back of his neck. The rooms remained empty. Unnaturally still. Disconcertingly familiar.

The same. Exactly the same.

Like his own, Loki had not stepped foot in Thor's rooms since before his fall. The night before Thor's aborted coronation was the last time he was in here. The two of them had come in from a night out and settled together in Thor's sitting room before a warm fire, each with a drink in hand. They'd spoken little, relishing in the quiet of one another's company. Something they so rarely did even when they were younger and more carefree.

Wilder. More reckless. Both of them stupid beyond bearing.

Loki stood in that same sitting room now. The furniture the same. Two empty mugs abandoned beside the space occupied years ago by two princelings who had no idea where the next day's ill-conceived paths would lead them. How it would destroy and reforge them both. The fur throw Loki had tossed over Thor after he'd fallen asleep before retiring to his own quarters lie strewn half on the floor. The boots Thor had kicked off abandoned next to the cold hearth.

His heart began to pound in his chest, his ears. He ran for the door.

_Loki! _

The faintest echo of a cry. Loki jerked to a halt in the half-opened doorway. When he looked back the room remained empty.

He fled.

_ screams. all around him, panic and terror. lights flickering. people running. fleeing something terrible. _

Loki stumbled hard into the wall, hands pressed to his ears and gasping. He looked around frantically. Expecting to see tight corridors. Frightened people. Flashing lights. Smoke rising. Noise pressing into him.

There was none of that.

The expansive golden corridors of the great palace of Asgard stretched before him. Barren and cold. Devoid of anything living. As if the masses of people who once flowed between these walls every single day had melted away.

Or burned to nothing.

_were slaughtered where they stood._

Loki shivered.

The flames lighting the braziers along the edges of shadowed corridors burned low. Echoes of blues and purples shimmered in their depths. Red crept along the walls and washed them away. Everything fell dim.

He rushed forward, reaching the throne room where Odin oversaw the working of the realm each day for as long as Loki could remember. Until a slow collapse upon the steps a lifetime ago in the weapons vault buried deep under Loki's feet.

Then Loki was the one to be buried. Forgotten. The Allfather's great war prize turned rabid. Was Odin surprised in the end? Or had he suspected it all along? Was that why it was so easy for Odin to throw him away?

His anger burned to life so easily. Loki wondered how he spent so many years swallowing it back without it igniting an inferno within to burn him to ashes.

Burn everything he touched.

The walls around him went up in flames.

_burning. asgard is burning._

Loki breathed deep and grasped for control. Now was not the time for rage. He had to find Thor. He reached for the great doors and pushed them open, leaving the burning walls behind.

The throne room was empty. At the end of the long hall Asgard's throne sat vacant.

"Thor?" Loki called. He pretended his voice did not waver. "Allfather? Guards!"

He waited. No one came.

"Heimdall! Guardian, do you see me? Send word I am here. Tell Odin I will plant myself upon his throne if he does not appear at once to scold me for my misdeeds."

_I love you, my sons._

Loki curled his hands into fists and squeezed, nails biting into the skin.

The emptiness yawned around him. Loki backed out of the room in haste before turning to run. He ran through the desolate halls, calling for Thor, for Odin, for anyone. Rushing out into the streets of the city, Loki paused. At once he realized the wrongness of what he saw from his balcony high overhead.

There were no people.

The markets. The training grounds. The barracks. Even the stables. They all sat empty. No people. No animals. No birds flying overhead. It was Asgard as if drawn from a memory, but unfinished.

What was Asgard without its people?

Loki swallowed back panic. He reached for his magic and from one breath to the next he stood upon the Bifrost outside the observatory. He stumbled and put a hand down on the bridge to steady himself. The bridge felt cold, stagnant. Loki yanked his hand back.

"Heimdall!" Loki called out as he stormed the guardian's domain, not altogether surprised it too stood empty. Heimdall's sword was gone. The mechanism that worked the Bifrost worthless without its power.

Loki's unease rose steadily, anger and fear rising with it. He choked it all back, gritting his teeth as he turned back to Asgard. The great shining city that sat atop all the realms. Looking down at all. Arrogant. Unconcerned. Unbroken.

_lost. beaten. dying._

A low whine escaped Loki's throat, building into a frustrated shriek echoing out across a Bifrost shimmering with purples and blues.

Red washed across the bridge like a tide.

Loki panted as he stared at the bridge beneath his feet. There was something he was forgetting. Something he had done. Something he was meant to do.

_Thor,_ Loki thought. _Where are you?_

He squeezed his eyes shut and fisted one hand into his hair and yanked. Pain burned his scalp as he pushed himself to think. Think, think, think. Remember.

_We have a hulk._

Loki's hands flew to his throat. He drew a deep breath, relief flooding through him as he drew in air with ease. Thanos. Thor. The Statesman.

The Stones.

He remembered.

Loki laughed, almost limp in his relief. A desperate plan yes, but not completely terrible for having been made up on so little time. At least it bought him a reprieve. Now he need only to escape, find Thor and regroup. He reached again for his magic and -

*** * ***

_You will never be a god._

Loki jerked awake on a choked off scream.

He flung himself aside in a panic, trying to escape the phantom crush of fingers. He ignored crashing around him as he scrambled aside. Muffled sounds were ignored while he tried to fight.

_ bodies. bodies strewn everywhere. piled on top of each other. crushing. accusing. he couldn't breathe. _

Kicking feet, hitting nothing in his bid to get away. No, not nothing. A surprised gasp. And then -

"Loki! What is the matter with you? Frigga, are you all right?"

"Yes. Of course. Loki, sweetheart, what's wrong?"

Strong arms encircled him and hauled him firmly against an equally strong chest.

"Breathe, brother. Easy. Breathe."

Loki's throat suddenly felt choked for a different reason. That voice. Those voices. He could could not help but obey. His eyes stung with hot tears, but he obeyed. He breathed.

Blue and red washed across his eyes. And then...

He blinked. He saw.

A dining hall. His family's. And his family - here. Here and whole. Frigga sitting inelegantly on her backside near him. Odin crouched next to her. Thor -

Thor's warmth wrapped around him.

_You're dreaming._

Loki breathed and blinked away tears.

_No._

"There now," Thor said, a smile to his voice. "That's better. What was all that about? Did your daydreams attack you?"

Frigga's soft fingers reached for him, stroking down his cheek. "Are you all right, darling?"

Loki could only nod.

Odin's pale eye pinned him in place on the floor as it swept over him. "I hope you have a good explanation for this display, my son. First, you will apologize to your mother for kicking her."

Loki gaped. Feet kicking that made contact with...something. Frigga on the ground.

"Mother," he gasped. "I am so sorry. Forgive me."

"Shhh," Frigga soothed. "No apology needed. Unless it's for nodding off at the table, hmm?" Her lips quirked in smile.

Loki hesitantly returned her smile. Her beautiful smile. Oh, how he missed it. Missed her. "Yes. I must have done. My apologises."

"Nightmares at the breakfast table." Thor hauled Loki to his feet while Odin helped Frigga. "Only you."

Loki laughed. Yes, a nightmare. That's all it was.

_shouts of confusion. cries of frightened children. people fleeing._

_death comes. _

Loki squeezed shut his eyes and took in deep, slow breaths. Willing away the remnants of his dream. Nightmare. He brushed off his clothes before reaching for a chair to retake his seat.

Blue. Sweeping across his skin. In front of everyone.

"Must be a Frost Giant thing, I suppose," Thor said, thumping down in his own seat.

Loki froze.

Frigga laughed. "Yes. We were warned about their strange quirks." Odin chuckled, pulled out her chair and seeing her seated before returning to his own place. They resumed their meals like nothing happened.

Thor paused mid-bite. "Don't just stand there, Loki. Eat."

None of his limbs obeyed him. His face prickled.

_heat. ice. shame. anger._

His guts twisted. Was he still dreaming?

"Loki. Sit down." Odin spoke to be obeyed, not sparing him a glance.

Loki sat. Stared at his plate. Watched the red and purple dance together across the table and fill his cups to overflowing and cascade onto the floor.

"What?" Thor jabbed a fork in his direction. "Not to your liking? Too well cooked for the monster runt?"

Frigga tittered beside him.

_rage._

Red rage. And purple. And blue.

The colours rippled around his _family_ like outlines. As if one good pull would see them ripped away and discarded. Gone forever.

_landing in a mountain of trash. tossed away. alone._

Loki blinked hard and his vision cleared. His legs felt stiff. His hands, still blue, trembled. "I suppose I don't have much of an appetite. May I be excused, please?"

Odin shot him a look brimming with irritation. "If I'd known you'd go running off to hide every time you felt slighted, I would have left you on the ice field. Stop sulking. Finish. Your. Food."

Mouth full, Thor snorted a laugh and almost choked. Loki shot him a glare which Thor ignored.

Frigga gave Loki a pitying look. "Loki, you know we're just teasing. Don't be so sensitive, dear. It's not your fault you're so unstable. It's in the blood. You were always doomed to madness."

_ the stars told him stories while he fell. the darkness whispered secrets. he wasn't real, they said. he never was. he had always been there. with them. _

_always falling._

Bile and horror rose in his throat as he stared at her, unable to voice any words, afraid if he tried he'd vomit. She smiled at him brightly. That perfect, wonderful smile. "Eat up and you can have extra sweet cream with your cake later."

Loki sank back into his chair, his legs no longer willing to hold him upright. He ate mechanically, chewing slow and swallowing. Trying to make room for the food somewhere amidst the revulsion that threatened to spill out. Threatened to swamp the room full of red. His family of twisted orange.

Loki closed his eyes against the kaleidoscope of stabbing pain.

_Not real. You forgot. You have to go back. Go back._

_Thor needs you._

Loki reached for a memory, floating in the roaring current of his mind. There was something there he needed. Something he had to take hold of. Something to make a difference. Maybe. If he could just -

Beyond the windows behind Thor's head a sky of purple rushed forth into the room to wash everything away. The food, the table. Loki looked at his hands, set flat on the table. The blue rushed out of his hands all at once, lingering for a moment along the tips of his fingers before fading away. Around him, his family wiped out in the breath of a moment and he stood alone in the cold, empty room. An orange haze hung heavy in the air.

_Don't leave me._

"It's you."

Not alone.

Loki turned to face the Zehoberei woman standing opposite him across the room. He knew her. Remembered her face if not her name.

"That's my question to ask, is it not?"

"Did he kill you, too?" she asked.

_a creature looking down at him. from atop a throne of stone._

_pain. fear._

_a creature looking down at him. a hand wrapped around his neck._

"Yes," Loki said with a steady voice. The only part of him that was steady. The ground rocked like waves beneath his feet. _I was murdered,_ his brain chased itself around a circling path of panic. _I was murdered. Again. In front of Thor. Again. _

"I'm sorry." She watched him with a calmness betrayed only by the slight tremor in her voice. "Where are we? I remember - " She shook her head. "I don't understand. How are we both here?"

Loki pressed his lips together until they hurt. Wondered at the nature of the _here_. He had died. He remembered. Aboard the Statesman. Thanos came for the Tesseract. Loki tried to kill him and failed. Thanos returned the favour with greater success.

Loki frowned. But before that - what had he been thinking? He must have had a plan. He wouldn't have let himself get so close to Thanos otherwise. But what?

The woman looked sharply behind her. Loki wondered what it was she was seeing.

The orange haze trembled.

It came back to him in a rush. A desperate moment breeding a far more desperate plan. An escape from the stalking death.

The woman turned her attention back to Loki, taking a step forward. Unyielding and unafraid. "He has to be stopped. You know what he intends. Is there anyway we can send a message? Can we get out of here?"

"How to escape the hand of death. What an excellent question," he said. "I think if we -"

The room jerked violently, like a great giant had struck beyond the walls. Loki and the woman both fell to the ground. A chasm shivered opened beneath her and swallowed her in an instant.

Loki tried to push himself to his feet. His hands sunk down to the wrists in blood. He tried to pull back but the cloying red crept up his arms. Blue bubbled forth from the chasm and spilled over the bloody floor turning it purple. The purple snaked toward him.

Loki found his feet and took a step back through the orange fog. Another chasm broke open behind him, shaking the ground. He lost his balance and toppled backward.

*** * ***

_You will never be a god._

Loki jerked awake on a choked off scream.

Frantic eyes searched the darkened surroundings for something familiar. Anything. He kicked free the thin blanket covering his small body, intent on scrambling up and off the narrow cot. Fear swept through him, burning through his veins and filling his lungs. Loki trembled.

A large hand appeared to pat his arm. "It's all right," came a deep voice nearby. "Just a dream. Go back to sleep."

Loki rolled to his side and peered over the edge. There was a giant of a man lying on the floor beside the cot. Shorn hair, a short beard, one eye, and muscled arms bigger than Loki's head. His fear receded as he blinked down at him and wondered why he didn't remember the man's name. He must be a guard. But he wasn't dressed like one. The cape folded under his head was red like father's, not gold like the Einherjar wore.

And no guard should be sleeping while on duty.

"Go to sleep," the man rumbled without opening his one good eye. "Are you sleeping?"

"I'm not tired anymore," Loki said. Not when he had a new puzzle stretched out on the hard metal ground beside him.

The man sighed. "Then just lie there quietly. It's not time to get up."

Loki bristled. The man spoke the words so matter-of-factly. As if he expected to be obeyed. As if Loki was a baby to be minded by grown-ups. He wasn't a baby. No matter what Thor said.

He sat up in defiance and waited to see what the guard would do next. The man did nothing. He didn't move. He remained undisturbed on his back on the floor, hands folded across his chest, feet crossed at the ankle. Chest rising and falling, deep and slow.

When the man failed to do anything interesting, Loki turned his attention to his surroundings. The room was very dark and he couldn't see any windows. Keeping an eye on the guard asleep on the floor, Loki carefully cast a few mage lights and set them afloat through the room. The lights glowed green. Loki frowned. They weren't supposed to do that. He reached out a hand to extinguish them, but before he could they turned to their usual soft golden hue. Just like mother's.

The room the lights illuminated was not a room Loki ever remembered seeing. Certainly not in Asgard. Fear returned as he glanced down at the man again. Maybe the man didn't look like one of the Einherjar because he wasn't. Maybe he was a kidnapper. Maybe Loki was a captive.

But why didn't he remember? And where was Thor?

Loki launched himself off the bed, landing with both feet on the man's mid-section. He woke with an "oof" of escaping air as Loki scrambled off him and ran for the door.

"Loki, what are you doing? Loki!"

_Get to the pods - run! Now!_

Outside the metal door the cramped corridors were filled with a heavy blue haze. There were screams in the distance. Sounds of fighting. Sobs and whimpers from the end of the corridor. Shadows of people rushing by, clinging to each other. Red flames licked along the walls.

_This isn't real._

Loki turned on his heel and ran.

Down one empty corridor, then another, then another. He didn't know where he was going. Green slid along the floor as he fled. Panicked shrieks and the cries of children echoed all around him. But everywhere he looked no one was there. Loki choked down the whimper trying to crawl free of his throat.

Where was Thor?

There was an orange door at the end of the next corridor. He lunged for it and all but fell through.

"What are you studying today, young prince?"

Loki blinked up at Heimdall. The watchman stood at his post, sword in hand, gazing out across the vastness of space. The colours of the Bifrost shimmered beneath Loki's feet. Orange. Blue. Green. Red. Purple. It was almost right. Except he didn't remember Heimdall and the Bifrost being inside a large room with a window taking up an entire wall. Or moving through space.

Heimdall turned his eyes on him. His empty, white eyes.

Loki knew he should tell Heimdall about the strange man. About his captivity. About the crying people. Heimdall would do something. He would help.

Heimdall would know where to find Thor.

_a blade driven deep. one last gasp of life. _

"When I woke there was a man sleeping on the floor. I didn't recognize him. He has very short hair and one eye. Is he a guard?"

"There has only ever been one destined to walk at your side, Loki," Heimdall said.

Loki frowned. How was that an answer? And the man was sleeping, not walking. Wasn't Heimdall listening?

"Where's Thor?"

"Never as far away as you fear."

Loki's frown rearranged itself into a scowl. He didn't always like the gatekeeper's riddles, especially the ones he couldn't figure out.

The floor shuddered underfoot. Cracks crept up the centre of the window. Loki shifted closer to Heimdall while trying not to be obvious about it. "Are we going to die?"

"One day death will take us all. There will be no escape."

"Oh."

The red flames had followed him into the room. Purple dripped down the big window. It was ruining the view. Green chased it away.

The cracks remained.

Loki squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to be afraid. He was a son of Odin and a son of Odin was not easily frightened. A comforting hand settled gently atop his head, smoothing along his curls. Loki leaned into it until the familiar touch faded.

When Loki opened his eyes, Heimdall still stared straight ahead with both hands wrapped around the hilt of his sword. Loki wondered why he was just standing there. Why hadn't Heimdall sent him away? He was a prince of Asgard and Heimdall was meant to keep all threats to Asgard at bay. Or was that why they were aboard this ship? Maybe Heimdall had already rescued him. But why were they taking the Bifrost with them? Where were they going?

And where was Thor?

Loki shuffled close enough to the gatekeeper to draw his attention. "I need to know where we're going, Heimdall. I want to make a star chart," he said, trying not to be unsettled by the white eyes looking down at him. "Then I can find Thor and we can find somewhere safe to hide until Father comes. Will you help me?" It was a good plan, Loki was sure. Father would be proud.

Heimdall turned his unseeing eyes back to the stars. "I will. I can still see them all. Every dead star. Every star not yet burned away. But they will all be dead in the end."

Loki shrugged as he flopped down near Heimdall's booted feet. He didn't bring paper. Or have anything to draw with. Maybe Heimdall could tell him where to find some?

Yellow streaked through the Bifrost's colours. They wove together and glittered all the fiercer. Loki smiled. That was better.

The roar of the Bifrost filled the room.

"The end comes," Heimdall said before dissolving to shining golden dust, covering Loki and the Bifrost.

Loki scrambled to his feet. "But what about my star chart? How will I know where to go? Heimdall, come back!" He stomped his foot. "Come back, I demand you come back now! Heimdall!"

The Bifrost cracked beneath his feet.

Loki shook his head to get dust out of his hair and patted his clothes down before turning to stomp toward the orange door. Before he could touch it the orange bled off into the air and the door disappeared. The room faded away, replaced with an orange haze so thick Loki couldn't make out any walls. Couldn't even see the floor he stood upon.

Loki spun around, frantic to find a way out. A man appeared in his path so suddenly Loki slammed into him.

"Whoa, there."

Loki made to back away. The man laid a hand over his shoulder to hold him in place. Loki wondered how loudly the man would scream if his wrist was broken for such impertinence.

"It's all right, I'm not going to hurt you." The man tried for a smile, but it sat tight and fixed on his features, making his pale eyes look shadowed. "I know what you just experienced must've been scary..."

"I'm not scared," Loki said.

The man laughed a little, though it made his smile look no less strained. "Then you are very brave little boy."

Loki shot him a poisonous glare and the man went suddenly still, the false smile falling away and replaced by a frown.

"Do I know you?" the man asked.

Loki studied him warily. With a start he realized the man was mortal. A Midgardian. Short, dark hair with shots of white at the temples and a small beard, the man wore a heavy red cloak around his shoulders. The cloak sang with power and it was all Loki could do not to reach out and touch it.

"What's your name?" the mortal asked.

"Why?"

"It's all right. You can tell me."

"My name is none of your concern."

The mortal tightened his grip on him and Loki was more tempted than ever to hurt him. Or run away. Find Thor. Find father. Or mother. Tell them a mortal laid a hand on him. Loki amused himself imagining the result.

"Tell me your name," the mortal spoke sharply.

Loki tilted his chin up defiantly. "I am Loki. Of..."

"Asgard." The mortal suddenly released him and took a quick step back. "Loki," he said, voice tight.

"You know of me?" Loki couldn't hide his surprise. How could any mortal know of him? Loki had never seen one before now. Asgard had little to do with the mortal realm and Loki had never been there. Or to any of the other realms. Mother said it was because he was too young. Thor said it was because he was a baby. Thor was just mad he wasn't allowed to go abroad yet either.

The mortal's jaw went rigid as he took another step back. He tapped his wrists together and moved his hands quickly in an inexplicable pattern. Nothing happened and the mortal stared at his hand in bafflement.

Loki wondered if he was attempting some arcane form of mortal magic. One of his tutors told him mortals had little by the way of magic, and what they did have was poorly understood and likely to obliterate the lot of them at some point sooner or later. Master Haagi hadn't sounded terrible concerned about it. Loki supposed it was because mortals weren't very important. But he was disappointed not to see the mortal cast anything all the same.

He studied Loki with an unsettling intensity. "Yes," he said finally. "I am Stephen Strange. We've met before."

Loki frowned. "I don't remember you."

The man's eyes narrowed. "You don't?" He sounded skeptical.

"No," Loki said, narrowing his eyes right back. He wondered if he would get in trouble for turning a mortal into a frog. He could always change him back later. Or give him to Thor as a pet.

"Why do you look like this?" He gestured at Loki.

"Like what?"

"A child."

Loki blinked at him, bewildered by the comment. How else should he look?

"Is this a trick?"

Loki stared up at the man, wide-eyed. Was the mortal mad? He glanced around furtively hoping a door would suddenly appear. None did.

The man grimaced. "Loki, you may not remember me as you are now, but we have crossed paths before. I can harbour a guess as to how I came to be here, but you? I was told you were dead by friends of your brother."

"Thor wouldn't say that!" Loki said indignantly. "And I am not dead."

"I am, yet here we both are." Strange looked around the room. "I wonder why there's only the two of us. If what I suspect happened happened, it should be a lot more crowded in here." Strange gave Loki a rueful glance. "I don't suppose you have access to magic?"

"A true sorcerer is never separate from his power," Loki recited his mother's first lesson dutifully. The mortal raised an eyebrow. Loki sighed and conjured a simple flame in his hand. Strange made a thoughtful sound in his throat. The flame in his hand flickered, as if struck by a breeze. But Loki's flames never faltered and there was no breeze. Puzzled, he extinguished the flame with a small gesture.

"Who killed you?" Loki asked curiously.

"A long story. You kept your power. You're here and somehow kept your power. That means - " Strange's eyes went tight at the corners, like he was thinking very hard. "I actually have no idea what that means. What do you remember? About how you got here?"

"I was on a ship," Loki said. "My father's watchman was rescuing me."

Strange made another thoughtful sound. "How did you come to be on the ship?"

Loki didn't know, but he wasn't about to tell Strange. He said nothing.

"Do you remember?"

Loki pressed his lips stubbornly together.

"So you don't remember Thanos?"

_Allfathers help us! _

Loki twitched. There was a ship. There was a man with one eye. Heimdall was there. And the Bifrost. It was wrong somehow, but Loki couldn't remember why.

Strange was still watching him with blazing intensity. Like he was something unexpected. Loki wondered if this mortal was a mage. He could feel a kind of power about him, something separate from the cloak he wore.

The cloak that was bleeding.

Loki blinked in surprise. The cloak's power shimmered in the dull orange light, a slow trickle being pulled away and seeming to disappear in the air. Loki wondered where it was going. Strange didn't seem aware of it, nor was he using the power to spell cast. Loki held out a cautious hand. The trickle of power redirected itself to him.

"What are you doing?" Strange asked, jerking away to keep his cape out of reach.

"Nothing," Loki said, pulling his hand back.

"The Cloak of Levitation is not for you," Strange said sternly.

"Are you a mage?"

"I am the Sorcerer Supreme."

"I don't know what that is."

"It's like...a mage," Strange conceded.

"Do you use the cloak for your magic?"

"I can. But not here."

"Why not?" Did the mortal not understand what he wore on his back?

"Apparently because I'm dead!" Strange snapped.

"So?" Loki snapped back.

Strange made an odd whining noise in his throat. He tried the trick with his hands again. When nothing happened he closed his eyes and bowed his head.

Loki was baffled. Any sorcerer can draw power from an object of power. That was what objects of power were for. Loki could feel the power humming from the cloak. Alive but muted. Even the power trickling off it was substantial enough to be made use of by any magic user.

The trick of it, so Father said, was to keep the object from overwhelming the sorcerer using it. It was why Father held Loki's hand so tightly whenever they went into the weapon's vault. Loki could feel the power reaching from almost every alcove they passed, but it was always the Casket at the end that sang to him the sweetest. The strongest of all Father's treasures.

"These are some of the most powerful objects in the realms, Loki," Father explained to him one afternoon. "But in the greater universe - this one and others - there are objects of far greater power. Objects so great they carry awareness in a way. Such things are not to be trifled with. You must exercise the greatest of caution should you encounter such an object. Such power is tempting for even the most seasoned of us. But it can be all too easy to lose yourself to it and thus leads to madness."

Which, Loki thought now, might explain Strange.

"All right," Strange said, turning to pace. "Everything here is orange. Ish. So - the Soul Stone. Which Thanos already had when he took the Time Stone." Strange gestured in Loki's direction. "You had the Space Stone. Which Thanos took from you before he...you... Nevermind. He won. He got all the Stones in the end and he won and we're here. But what I still don't understand is why _you_ are. It's as if..." Strange trailed off as he turned his focus back to Loki and stared.

"Who's Thanos?" Loki wanted to know.

_It's him. _

_Who?_

_Him._

_Loki, who's aboard that ship?_

Strange swooped down on him in one movement, gripping him by the upper arms. Loki yelped and tried to pull away. Strange tightened his hold. "Listen to me very carefully. I think you were pulled in before Thanos had all the Stones."

"What Stones? Unhand me!" Loki tried again to twist out of the mortal's grip.

Strange shook him once. Hard. Loki squawked in protest. "The Infinity Stones. Thanos sought them. He gained all them and killed half of all living things in the universe."

Loki gaped. "That's not true! My father would have stopped him."

Strange made a noise of frustration. "I'm a fool. I used the Time Stone to find seek any outcomes where we might win and assumed we'd already lost based on what I saw." Strange stared down at Loki with blazing intensity. "Based on who I saw."

"What are you talking about? Release me at once!"

Strange ignored his command and gave him another shake. "But you held a Stone as well and have, as I understand it, a somewhat interesting history of escaping death."

"What?"

"If you had a chance to beat death again, you would've taken it. Am I right? Did you have a plan or was it happenstance?"

"Let me go!" Loki cried.

A door outlined in yellow shone into being behind Strange.

Strange squeezed his arms. "Loki! Concentrate. It's very important we figure out the path in which you came to be here. If we understand it then maybe we can work out a way to get you free."

"Unhand me!" Again Loki tied to pull out of Strange's grip without success.

"Just try and remember. I'll help - "

"I said unhand me!" Loki twisted enough to deliver a swift kick to Strange's shin. Strange grunted in pain and loosened his hold. Loki twisted again to sink his teeth in the mad mortal's wrist. Strange yelped and jerked backward. Loki shoved past him and ran for the door.

"No - wait!"

All the rainbow colours rushed back into being and swept across the ground and up to the door just as Loki put his hand on it.

*** * ***

_You will never be a god._

Loki jerked awake on a choked off scream.


	2. Chapter 2

Breath caught in his throat - _someone's killing me_ \- before his lungs reminded him they still knew what to do with or without his help. He sucked in air. One breath past the (_last_) next. Too fast, too panicked. He didn't move from his place in the middle of an empty room while he struggled to find calm.

He wondered how he came to be here. And why? The ghost of a dream of dying - _memory_ \- faded, leaving him unsettled. Loki stood slowly. He was clad in soft, comfortable clothing. The sort he never wore anywhere except at home. Which this place was clearly not. True, his armour and weapons were never far from hand, but how did he get here? In this bleak space.

_screaming, crying._

_voices falling silent._

_ rainbows dancing across the floor. rainbows streaking across the stars. _

Loki blinked. No people. Quiet. The only colour to be seen a thick orange haze that hung in the air and clung to every surface.

Turning slowly in place Loki scrutinized his surroundings. He frowned. No door. No windows. A trap? A test? Find a way out of a room with no exit. Not that different from the sort of thing his tutors conceived of when he was a youngling. But Loki was far from childhood and centuries past the need for this kind of training.

He focused inward and reached for the space beyond these walls, and -

He was no longer alone.

Eyes snapping open, Loki spun to face the new presence. A trap then.

But the young woman across the room looked every bit as surprised to see him as he was her. She tilted her head to take him in, face showing little worry at his presence. She was a slight thing. Mortal. Pale skinned with long red hair, vibrant in colour and near matching the clothes she wore. As vibrant as the red shimmer that surrounded her body like a carelessly drawn outline.

He opened his mouth to demand she identify herself, but she was quicker.

"Loki," she smiled. "Hi, again."

Loki snapped his mouth shut.

Seeming unbothered by his lack of response, she drew her hands in front of her and gave them a cursory glance. She made one waving gesture, then another. The gestures meant nothing to Loki, but seemed to annoy her. She shot him an aggrieved look.

"I don't understand why this keeps happening."

"Problem?" Loki asked archly.

"Why yes," she said with casual familiarity. "I do have a problem. Several, in fact. I suppose you still have your powers?"

Loki let not a trace of the disquiet he felt show as he conjured up a small dagger and set to cleaning his fingernails with it.

She folded her arms across her chest. "Show-off."

"Lost your way, girl?" he drawled, attention on his immaculate nails.

"Funny," she said. "I see you haven't figured out yet how to get free. I haven't had any luck finding anyone who can help. But I think I met an Elf. Couldn't understand a word he said. And I think he was crazy. Or maybe it was from being in this place."

"Difficult to say with Elves."

She laughed. An easy, honest laugh. The kind Loki heard from few and shared with even fewer.

"I ran into Stephen Strange awhile back," she said. "He agrees with your theory. Actually, he claims it was what he thought all along. He seemed kinda annoyed he's only seen you one time and that you didn't remember him." She gave him a curious look. "Something about you being a child?"

"What?"

"I don't know. There wasn't enough time to ask before I was pulled away. You always look the same to me. Except you keep changing your outfit. Did you know you do that?"

Loki looked down at his clothes. He was outfitted in black leathers, light armour, boots and a green cape. Nothing different than he usually wore away from Asgard. He had no idea what this mortal woman was referring to. Nor did he know anyone called Stephen Strange.

"What theory is this?" he asked.

"The one about the Infinity Stones absorbing all the energy when Thanos wiped out half the universe because apparently super powerful objects behave however they want to, especially in the case of more than one being used together."

Loki stared in stunned horror. Before this room he was in Asgard. There had been no talk of anyone gathering lost artifacts of power. Asgard's armies were not being assembled to do battle. Father was in a foul mood because an ongoing feud between two of his counselors was threatening to suck in the rest of the council, not because some maniac was trying to upend the universe.

"I didn't use all your fancy technical words," she continued. "Mostly because I didn't remember a lot of them, probably because they were in a language I don't know, but I got the gist of it across and you have no idea what I'm talking about do you?" She paused, looking disappointed. "You don't remember me."

Loki stared, bewildered. He'd never laid eyes on this mortal in his life. He was sure of it.

"I'm Wanda," she gave him a sad look. She gestured at him. "You changed your clothes again."

Loki cast a quick look down and wondered whatever possessed him to go out in public wearing blue leathers.

"Oh, hey," she said suddenly. "Look at that."

When Loki looked the red shimmer surrounding the mortal was gone. Instead there was red gathered in her hands and she twirled it confidently around her fingers.

She shot him a quick smile. "I really do want to know why it keeps coming and going."

Loki turned his head away, thinking furiously, searching for an explanation. What was this? A trap, of course. It must be. But why? What was the purpose? Was the red witch part of it? Was she mad?

Was he?

When he turned back the witch was gone.

*** * ***

Loki's eyes flew open and he bolted upright. His hands went at once to his throat and found only soft fabric. The ghostly sense of a hand gripping his throat sent flutters of panic through him. He lie back down and willed his heartbeat to slow. He didn't remember falling asleep, but he must've. Fallen asleep and dreamed of choking.

Not how his dreams of dying usually went.

Loki closed his eyes and breathed deep just because he could. In. Out. In. Out. The Bifrost bridge hummed contentedly beneath him, offering its sturdy reassurance that he was safe. He was home.

A steady _clomp, clomp, clomp_ of heavy footsteps drew near. Loki didn't have to look. He knew who approached.

"What are you doing?" Thor dropped down next to him. Flushed with youth even as he rushed headlong into manhood, Thor grew taller and broader with each passing year. Loki was the one long-legged and lanky, treated more a child than his brother who was only a scarce few years older. Among Aesir, they were near close enough in years to be considered the same age. But it hardly mattered with Thor growing more golden as time passed.

_Asgard's golden son_, he was called by many with pride. The epithets Loki heard whispered about himself in shadowed corners were considerably less flattering.

Thor nudged him. "Well?"

Loki's eyes fluttered open at the question and selfish pleasure coursed through him at having Thor seeking him out. Thor was never truly far away, not really, but sometimes Loki worried at being left behind.

_You are coming with me, aren't you?_

"Thinking," Loki said.

"Why do I ask? When are you ever doing anything else?"

"Someone has to do enough for the both of us."

Thor laughed. "Are you hungry? Here."

Thor tossed him an apple. Loki caught it in one hand without looking.

_If you were really here I might have to hug you._

"Are the stars so interesting tonight?" Thor stretched his body out to lie alongside Loki's with his feet pointed at Asgard whereas Loki's aimed outward toward the Observatory and the space beyond. Thor laid his head down next to his. Their hair mingled together atop the shimmering Bifrost. Golden stands mixing with black. Dark drowning the light.

_You really are the worst brother._

The stars sparkled overhead. So many colours. Purples and oranges and reds. Yellows and blues and greens. More colours than Loki remembered. He wondered why they changed so? He would have to ask Heimdall.

A sharp crack from the Bifrost filled the night air. Loki bit into his apple and chewed carefully, wary of choking.

Thor wriggled over enough so he had room to turn his head to face his brother. Loki copied the motion. Their noses were near touching and they grinned at one another. Each delighting in the other one's upside down face.

"You think Asgard will go up in flames tonight?" Thor wondered.

"Hmm. Maybe. Or tomorrow night."

_Why have you done this?_

Thor made a considering noise. "At least something interesting will happen. I'm bored."

"You're always bored."

"Not always."

"Liar."

Thor reached over to playfully tap the end of Loki's nose. "I'm not the liar here, little brother."

"No, true. That would be me."

The Bifrost cracked again and shifted beneath them.

"This thing is falling apart," Thor said unconcerned. "Father's not going to be happy."

_This was your doing._

Loki felt a creeping sense of unease. "I think father might be dead, Thor."

"Oh?" Thor sounded unconcerned. "Are you sure?"

_I'll tell father what you did here._

"No."

"All right." Thor turned his head back to look up at the pale, shining stars. He bit into his apple.

"If I stay here, I'm going to fall," Loki told him.

"I suppose you will."

_Loki - no!_

"What do I do?"

"Stay or go, Loki. It's your choice. It's always been your choice."

_Come home._

"I never know which to choose."

"Whichever one you pick will be wrong," Thor said sagely.

"I know."

The stars with the blinding colours were back. Loki so wanted to know what they meant. A vibrant green one caught his eye. He reached up a hand as if he could touch it and pluck it from the sky. The star seemed to shine brighter. He pulled his hand away, laughing at his own silliness.

_Loki!_

Loki sat up at the sound of a voice calling out both near and far away. A fiery spinning ring sprang to life a few feet away. A portal. Here on the Bifrost. Loki didn't know whether to reach for a weapon or his magic. He reached for both as he scrambled to his feet. He was dizzy for a moment, but it quickly faded.

The Bifrost was breaking apart. Chunks of the bridge falling into the churning waters beneath. Heimdall's conservatory broke away with an ear splitting crack and tumbled into nothing. Asgard's golden palace shone in the distance. Aloof to the destruction.

At Loki's feet, Thor took another bite of apple. Red spread out beneath him.

_blood pooling under his boots. blank eyes staring at him._

The green star glittered, seeming closer than before. He reached out his hand to it again. The portal shimmered fiercely sending off an explosion of sparks. Loki dropped his hand. The star faded away.

Loki eyed the portal. Mortal magic, he realized. In Asgard. If alive, the Allfather would not be pleased. Loki almost laughed. He caught sight of a man through the portal and the laughter died in his throat.

_You're late._

It was the guard. The one sleeping on the floor. But that was on a ship, far away and when he was a child. Someone must've found him and brought him home. So long ago Loki barely remembered it at all. Why did he think Heimdall was there? Father wouldn't have sent the watchman to save him. Heimdall's place was with Asgard. Maybe it had been a dream? Loki dreamed oddly even as a child.

But there he was. The man with one eye. Through a portal made of mortal magic. He looked far away and disheveled. Blood and soot smeared on his face. There was smoke in the background, lights flashing. He looked alone and desperate as he searched through piles of rubble, stumbling as he moved.

_the bifrost. blinding._

"Thor," Loki called out.

Still lounging beside him on the disintegrating bridge Thor chewed contentedly. "I'm here."

The guard looked up and glanced around him. The piles of rubble turned to bodies. His lips moved as he seemed to cry out.

_Loki! Answer me! Loki!_

The bodies began spilling out through the portal, covering the breaking Bifrost. Asgardians. Men, women, children. Blood slid along the bridge toward Loki's boots. Horror crept up his throat. The choking sensation returned. His hand went for his collar and yanked at the fastenings.

"Stay or go, brother," Thor said from his spot. He tossed his apple core aside and it sailed over the broken edges of the bridge, vanishing from sight. He squirmed about as if settling in for a nap. Hands folded across his chest. Legs crossed at the ankle.

The familiarity of Thor's favourite position for relaxing prickled along the back of Loki's skull even as he struggled for air.

Another portion of the Bifrost broke away and a splinter struck Thor in the eye. Thor reached up with one hand to pluck it out. Along with his eye.

"Ow," Thor said. He tossed the splinter and eye away. They followed the path of the apple core.

_You must be Hela._

"Why?" Loki gasped. "Why did you do that?"

Thor shrugged. "No sense holding onto broken things."

A raven's call sang out clear against the destruction of the Bifrost.

"Loki!"

Loki stared. Thor was at his feet. But his lips had not moved. Blood was soaking his hair.

The portal remained, dumping the bodies of their people onto the Bifrost. The bodies changed and they all wore Loki's face. He looked closer. No, not just his face. They were him. All of them. Some looked as he did now, some much younger, some much older. Some of the bodies were inexplicably blue, as if he were some kind of misshapen Frost Giant. But they were all unmistakably him. The pile of dead princes grew steadily, becoming great enough they started dropping off the sides of the Bifrost. Loki didn't move for fear of being swept into the pile.

The feeling - _grip_ \- around his throat tightened and he fought to draw breath. He could still see the guard with one eye. Loki glanced down at Thor. The same eye was missing. When he looked back up, the guard was looking right at him.

The guard gazed at him through the portal with a desperation that was terrifying. Eye brimming with emotion. Pleading. He held out his hand as if to touch something. Someone. "Loki," his voice shook. "I can't watch you die. Not again. Please - "

_Go. Go with Valkyrie. I'll hold them off._

_There's no running from him. I should know._

_ Then we stand and fight. Together. We'll put an end to this monster. _

_Smashing plan. Any ideas?_

_You're usually the one with ideas._

Everything was lost in the shriek of the Bifrost as it tore itself apart. The rest of the bodies fell away in the churning void. The portal disappeared. Asgard faded in the distance. Thor fell without a sound into the darkness.

All Loki's remaining breath fled at once. "No!"

He threw himself off bridge after Thor.

*** * ***

Loki jolted in his chair. His hands frantically grasping at the cushioned seat for balance as he nearly toppled off. Squeezing his eyes shut, he pressed his feet firm to the ground until the dizzy, disoriented feeling washing over him ceased. He was inside, he was seated - why did it feel like he was falling? When steadiness returned, Loki opened his eyes and stared at a familiar golden field of light overtop a familiar golden bed.

Encasing the one being more familiar and beloved than any other.

"There you are," a teasing voice. Kind. The kindest voice Loki had ever known.

He cleared a suddenly tight throat before speaking. "Mother."

Frigga smiled at him across the expansive bed. Silver hair gathered elegantly away from her lined and shadowed face. "I wondered how long it would take you to find us. But as much as the sight of you gladdens my heart, you needn't remain here, Loki. Not when you can still find your way free of this place."

"Can I?"

"Can't you?"

"I'm exactly where I want to be," Loki said with his most charming smile. "As I always am." Her face told him she didn't quite believe him, but nor did she expect a different answer.

Loki looked to the figure deep in slumber between them to escape her knowing eyes. Thor slept bathed in healing light. It made his hair and beard look more white than grey. His face less weathered in the deep sleep he put off as long as he could.

_Wrong._

"You can speak to him," Frigga said, reaching for Thor's hand. "He can see and hear us even now." She raised her eyes and gave Loki an intent look. "Reach out for him. He may yet feel the pull."

"How long will it last?" He knew this answer. He always knew.

"I don't know," Frigga said, her eyes going back to the still figure between them. Her hand, which had been reaching for Thor's, rested upon the bed. Empty. "This time it's different. We were unprepared. So much death. So much ruin. Who can we blame but ourselves?"

Loki blinked and the room was encased in flame. He closed his eyes against the heat of the fire. When he opened them again all was ash except the three of them, their chairs, the bed, and the golden light shining down from above.

"I'll never get used to seeing him like this," Loki said. "The most powerful being in what's left of the Nine Realms. Lying helpless. Until his body is restored."

_No_.

This wasn't right. None of it. Thor was life. Thor was vibrant. Thor was the air in every room, the sun in the sky, the rage of the storm. How could he ever lie so very still? So quiet. So unlike Thor.

Loki lifted his gaze to his mother's face. Even in her old age she was as graceful as she ever was. But there was something unsettling about seeing her like this. Almost as if...

Almost as if he'd never seen it before.

_Something's wrong._

A raven cawed. Loki turned, expecting to see two ravens perched on posts at the foot of the bed. Faithfully awaiting for the occupant to awake. But there was nothing. No ravens. Not for Thor.

"He's put it off for so long now. Trying to save so much. Odin. Asgard. You. Everything that meant something to him. And now? I fear..." Frigga leaned heavily on the bed that cradled her son. There was ash stuck in her hair.

"You're a good brother. When you are of a mind to be," Frigga smiled impishly. "You mustn't lose hope he will return to you. And you to him. You can still be saved."

Loki eyed Thor's unmoving form. "What hope is there for Thor? Or me?"

"What hope is there for any of us?"

_Wrong._

"Mother..."

"Oh, Loki," she said, her face pained and gnawing at his heart. "There's so much you don't understand. So much I left you unprepared to face. I wish..."

Flames swallowed her.

"No!" Loki shot to his feet, the chair clattering to the floor. "No! Mother, please!"

Golden dust swirled about Frigga's chair before floating gently upward to be lost in the healing light engulfing Thor. The light pulsed once and expanded to include Loki standing beside his motionless brother. Loki planted a knee on the bed and leaned forward to grab Thor's shoulder. He shook him.

"Thor, wake up. Wake up - now!"

Thor slumbered on. Loki shook him harder. "You have to wake up! Thor!"

"Loki."

Loki froze. That voice. Here. And he knew.

_It's not Thor who should be lying in this bed._

"Loki. Look at me."

Slowly, carefully, Loki edged off the bed and turned.

Odin stood halfway down the steps at the entrance to his own bedchambers. No, not his bedchambers.

The weapons vault.

Thor was gone. The bed, the healing light, even the chair Loki had been sitting in. Now he stood in the centre of the vault looking up - always looking up - at Odin.

Loki felt small. He was a man grown and still no being he ever encountered made him feel as small as the man before him. Anger and resentment churned through his veins. His guts answered with a painful twist of anxiety and desperate desire for approval. All that loathsome sentiment rushing back much to his despair.

Not even Thanos could cure - _break_ \- him of that.

"Am I cursed?"

Odin looked startled at the question. "No."

A smile tugged at the corners of Loki's mouth. "Are you quite certain, Allfather?"

"I am."

Loki looked around him. The vault was the same as always. Light and shadows and treasures entombed all around them. _That's not all that's entombed._ Loki cast a dark thought of what lie hidden away beneath his feet.

"I don't want to be here," Loki said.

"I know."

All the alcoves surrounding him were dim. The waters lining the walkway still like looking glass. Odin Allfather stood unmoving on the stairs leading to the sole exit.

"Let me out."

"This is not the way," Odin said. He sighed. "We've never really left this place, you and I. So much unsaid and unfinished. But here we are."

"Why?"

"I think you know."

"Do I?"

"You are drifting. You have been for some time. You will be lost if you cannot find your way free. That is something I could not bear. It is why I have come."

Loki studied him, watching for the lie. Waiting for the deception. Odin in his mind's eye - forever strong and unbowed. Odin in his last memory - old and waiting to say goodbye. Odin before him - somehow both.

_Remember this place. Home._

Loki frowned. "Are you really here?"

"As much as I can be. Given the circumstances."

"I don't understand."

"Your mother and I watch over you, Loki. You and Thor both." Odin smiled softly. "Your mother is as ever delighted with your cleverness as she is fearful of your reckless disregard for your own well-being. She'd be here now to chide you for it if she could."

Loki blinked in confusion. "But she was just here. She was trying to tell me..." he trailed off, uncertain. He thought Frigga was there. And Thor. They were - weren't they?

"Your mother works her power in her own way," Odin said. "Her strength is as ever to guide wherever she can. Whenever she can."

_Am I not your mother?_

_Your mother - she calls me._

"She wasn't here," Loki realized. "No more so than you are. You're dead. Both of you."

"Yes."

Loki looked around him. The vault, all its shadowed treasures, including the one he used to...

Asgard burned. Her people dead, slaughtered at the hands of a threat none of them remembered. The survivors fled straight into the path of -

Thanos.

_A desperate thrust of his dagger. A hand tight around his throat. _

_You will never be a god._

Loki looked to Odin. "Am I dead, too?"

"Yes. And no."

"What?"

"Your body succumbed to the death brought by the Titan. But not before you sent your consciousness fleeing into a vessel capable of preserving you." Odin looked at him strangely. If Loki didn't know better, he'd think Odin was proud. "Foolish child. Seizing upon the faint hope of preserving yourself without sparing a thought as to how the Stones might bind you to them and destroy you."

A cold rush of realization churned through his guts. "I did this."

"Yes. I fear to think where you got such an idea."

"I had to do something. Thanos came."

"I know."

"He hurt me. He was hurting Thor."

"I know."

"I had a chance. I took it."

"Yes. You certainly did," Odin breathed out a long, tired breath before lowering himself down to sit on the stone steps. He gestured at the space beside him. Loki moved hesitantly to climb up and sit next to him. It was the same spot where he crouched beside Odin, fearing to touch him, after he collapsed into sleep so long ago.

"Now what will you do?" Odin asked curiously. "How do you intend to escape the grasp of the Stones? They will not surrender you easily even if you had the strength to pull yourself free. And even if they did, then what?"

"I had a plan," Loki said quickly. "Truly, I did."

"Oh?"

Off Odin's questioning look, Loki cast his eyes down and laughed. It rang hollow and bitter to his ears. "At least, I think I did. I'm sure I thought it a decent one. But - "

"But you cannot remember."

"I remember knowing I was going to die. I knew it before Thanos took hold of me. I knew as soon as I saw his ship upon us."

A warm, strong hand settled on his shoulder and squeezed. Loki let himself be comforted. He had sent his conscious self into an artifact of unlimited power and gotten stuck. The Stones's collective power only grew as they were gathered together and they tossed him about like a leaf in a hurricane.

A resilient leaf, but even the most resilient could be obliterated by a fierce enough storm.

He should be humiliated. He was humiliated. Loki wondered how many times he remembered the steps he took, the plan he had, only to have the knowledge slide away.

The Infinity Stones were the greatest objects of power in the history of the known universe and they were never going to release him. A long, slow descent into madness was all that awaited him now before the Stones eventually tore him asunder and destroyed all traces of him. Loki would eventually lose enough sense of himself to not realize he was mad. At least, he hoped.

He should have surrendered to death. He said as much to Odin.

"If you had done so," Odin spoke into the quiet surrounding them, "you would have found welcome in Valhalla. But that is not the case. You cannot go back and change choices made. None of us can. One can only move forward."

"How?" Loki's voice trembled, betraying the fear he felt growing. Fear for his mind. Fear of being ripped apart. Fear of how long it would take. Fear of being aware for too long.

Odin patted his shoulder firmly before using it as a brace to push himself back to his feet. "I have passed beyond the realms of the living, Loki. But I am not wholly apart from the universe, nor will I ever be. Even now I feel the pain of the wound inflicted upon it by the Mad Titan. Little can I do to heal what has been wrought."

"He has won," Loki said dully. "Hasn't he?"

"For now, yes. But the universe resents the wound inflicted upon it and seeks to heal it. It is not yet done with the Titan, I think. He claimed to have sought balance, but he is the one who has thrown everything out of alignment. True balance must be restored. The universe demands it. Such a call must be answered."

Loki looked up sharply. "Restored? But how?"

Odin uttered a sound of amusement, a gleam in his one good eye that Loki found both terrifying and reassuring. "How indeed. But, come. Even I cannot remain in such a place for long. The Stones grow resentful. It is past time for us both to leave here, never to return."

He offered Loki a hand up. After a moment's hesitation Loki let Odin pull him to his feet. Odin set off down the steps, away from the great doors, and through the centre of the vault. Loki followed cautiously in his wake.

Colours crept out slowly from the alcoves. Red, blue, orange, red, purple, yellow. Inching toward them - only to retreat back into the shadows as Odin swept past. Loki followed closer on his heels, pausing only briefly as Odin passed through the wall at the back that once separated the Destroyer from the rest of the weapons. Loki stepped through the wall and stopped.

Odin was gone. Loki was alone. A black terrible void rushed in from all sides to consume him. Loki tried to scramble out of its reach, to retreat back the way he came.

"Allfather," Loki cried. "Father!"

A firm hand on his back gave him a gentle push deeper into the void.

"Forward, my son."

Loki's vision swam. He jerked his head searching, but saw nothing. Only darkness swallowing him. The void rushed into his ears until he could not hear his own voice or the beating of his heart. The pressure on his back disappeared and he could feel nothing at all.

Loki was lost.

*** * ***

Lost.

Darkness.

Falling.

Pain.

Fear.

_fear. pain. falling. darkness._

_lost._

Bile rose in his throat. Choked back. Desperate breaths.

_pain. pain. pain._

Brightness overhead. Sweetness on the air. Agony thrumming everywhere.

Soft fingers brushing along his forehead.

_Shhh, my sweet boy. Breathe. That's it._

He breathed.

_You are safe now._

Loki breathed and breathed and breathed.

_Reach for him when you are ready. He will come._

*** * ***

Loki opened his eyes.

The sky overhead was an almost translucent blue with dark, sparse clouds. Two suns shone overhead. One near and red. The other distant and white. Loki frowned as he tried to place this sky. It was of no world known to him.

He pulled himself up to sitting and looked around. He was in a field of tall, feathery grasses. There was a river straight ahead. Brilliant blue and rushing frantically between two rocky banks. The shoreline on the other side was thick with towering deep green and white speckled trees as far as he could see. A piercing shriek sounded through the air as a great grey bird took flight from the forest, pushing itself high and higher into the sky on a wingspan of at least a dozen feet. Loki watched it until it flew out of sight.

He pushed himself slowly to his feet. Swaying, Loki worried he might tumble back down to the ground and in the next moment he did. A cry of frustration died in his throat as it stuck and turned to a hacking cough. Loki rolled to his side as he coughed and tried to get his throat clear. A throat that throbbed with pain, as did the arm he leaned upon.

Loki remembered the cause of his injuries. Remembered he always knew he wouldn't survive Thanos, even as he was making a last ditch effort to himself via the Infinity Stones. An improvised plan, the details of which only half-remembered, made in the stolen moments before his death.

He'd miscalculated right from the start. He hadn't prepared for the possibility of Thanos bearing down on them at their weakest. He hadn't expected to ever part with the Space Stone, so cleverly secreted away none knew Loki had it. He could still hear the echo of Thor's tortured screams.

The arrival of Banner's beast was fortuitous enough to give him precious minutes for hasty spellwork. After Banner was beaten and sent away, Loki knew all that was left for him was to get close enough to the Space Stone. His attempt to kill Thanos was genuine enough as Loki had no intention of cowering before his doom. Nothing would have given him greater pleasure than thrusting his dagger through Thanos's throat. The Black Order would have undoubtedly killed him for it, but Loki would've at least had the satisfaction of revenge.

But reaching the Stone was his main objective. In that he succeeded. Close enough to touch.

There were stories Loki read from long ago in forbidden books hidden away in a place he'd had no business being. Stories about beings of great power who sought to live on by blending their mind - their essence of self - with a suitable powerful magical object. It was said such a thing might even magnify the strength of said object. Such stories did not mention the possibility of separating one's essence from the object at a later time.

Loki thought he could beat the odds. It was hardly the first time. He understood the Space Stone as well as any and believed he could use its power to boost his own enough to later fling himself free of it. Then it was just a matter of returning to his physical form which he'd cast spells to preserve and tie himself to like a trail of breadcrumbs through a forest. All done in the space of minutes before stepping out of the shadows to face the Titan.

And after? That part Loki couldn't recall. If he'd even thought that far ahead.

The stories were cautionary tales, all of them. Told of long ago fools who overstepped themselves in a mad bid to live forever. And Loki had ignored them in his desperate bid to save himself.

But Loki was never one to let uncertainty stop him. Especially when death was the only other option. He didn't want to live forever. He just wanted to live. Who knew death would take such offence? Loki laughed silently.

He reached for his magic and was reassured of its comforting presence, though it sputtered and gasped like a dying flame in a campfire. But even the weakest of flames could be coaxed into an inferno. The Stones had not sucked him dry. He survived those, too.

Loki was nothing if not a survivor.

Exhaustion washed over him like a tide. He fell back and stared up at the sky. The dark clouds carved a quick path overhead, carrying away with them any promise of a storm. He breathed deeply and savoured the sweet, fresh air pulled into his lungs. Listened to the power of the river. Looked at the position of the two suns and wondered - why here?

Mother always told him there was purpose to everything Odin did. It was only after she was dead that he understood her actions held no less purpose than her husband's. He could almost hear her encouragement while he struggled to find a solution to a problem at hand. Could almost hear Odin's unfathomable advice to stop looking directly at the problem and instead look beyond it to find the answer.

Loki closed his eyes and thought. Felt the warmth beat down upon him. Listened to the whispers of the grasses as they swayed and tickled at his skin. Heard the rush of the water and the far off cries of birds carried along the wind.

He remembered.

He knew of this place. Not the field nor the forest nor the river. But the suns. Those he remembered from the maps of nearby systems he poured over with Thor and Heimdall the morning of Thanos's attack. An isolated little planet less than two days travel from their position. He'd scoffed at Thor's suggestion they stop there - here - to rest and explore before continuing on to Midgard. To give their people a break from the monotony of deep space travel. Loki called it a waste of time, pointing out the planet held nothing of value.

The Norns did enjoy their little jests. As did his parents.

Loki kept his eyes closed and reached deep into his dwindled well of magic. Reached for the oldest and strongest thread woven into its core. A thread unbroken no matter how thin it had been stretched or how deeply buried at times, remaining steadfast no matter how much Loki wished he was strong enough to break it and be done with it. The one thread that endured. The one he re-enforced minutes before he met his end.

Loki pictured the suns in his mind. He held the thread firm and pulled.

_Thor, _ he called. _I'm here._

_end._


End file.
